Legare Harmful Propaganda Leap 2: “Thanks Democrats”
Reflective Essay & Works Cited Attached
In selecting this example of “Thanks Democrats” for this example of harmful propaganda, I wanted to choose a topic that is widely familiar and common amongst college students and older generations. In today’s world, politics have been especially heated within the past decade with Biden versus Trump. Political parties are heavily divided, and many times are hostile towards each other. With the popularity of social media apps such as Twitter in today’s society, hateful propaganda is very sadly not unfamiliar to most. This Twitter example of hateful propaganda is a prime example of how politics is reflected in society, and how Patriotism within propaganda has become something totally unhinged and dangerous. In this particular example, we can see that a large group of traveling people has been randomly labeled as illegal immigrants that are murderers, child prostitutes, and others infected with deadly contagious diseases. The curator of this image has also targeted Democrats in this piece of propaganda, claiming that it is the Democratic party’s fault that all of these alleged “bad” and “infected” individuals are going to get into America and allegedly “worsen” our country. In this creative process, I struggled with the creation of a screenplay. Prior to this assignment, I have had very minimal experience with creating a screenplay. Keeping in mind what we have learned about propaganda thus far, I wanted to make sure that my screenplay video was enticing enough to the viewer, and visually and audibly appealing as well. For this portion I had to take myself out of the eye of the creator, and try to view my own work as a consumer or audience member. I also struggled with trying to maintain as accurate as possible when speaking about politics, and not letting my own personal biases and beliefs interfere with the messages I was trying to convey. As an individual who is not particularly political, this was a tough task to achieve as I have to be careful with what I say and how it may come across to others who may be more political than myself. One of the creative breakthroughs I experienced when creating this screenplay and doing research on this topic was using the screencast creator tool. This initially I thought was going to be a struggle, as I had never used this platform before, but I found that I actually enjoyed using it, and it was relatively easy to navigate and incorporate the essential information that I needed to use. In creating this screenplay and doing the additional research on harmful political propaganda, I was able to easily relate this particular piece of media to other media that I have consumed over the years regarding politics. I felt that this topic of harmful political propaganda targeting the Democratic party was a very important topic to discuss, as political propaganda has gotten so out of hand with the explosion of social media. With all walks of life being given the same platform to speak on to mass audiences, it makes for a very dangerous space for the creation and spread of propaganda, which is the message I hoped to convey in this project.
Works Cited
Immerwahr, D. (2020, December 23). Perspective | we teach students how to understand the U.S., not to Love it — or hate it. The Washington Post. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/23/teach-history-american-patriotism/
Thanks Democrats. Mind Over Media. (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://propaganda.mediaeducationlab.com/rate/thanks-democrats
